Ex-soldier loses appeal over murder of Orkney waiter

A FORMER soldier jailed for the “vicious, evil and unprovoked” racist killing of a Bangladeshi waiter at the Mumutaz restaurant in Kirkwall, Orkney has lost his appeal against the conviction.

Michael Ross, 33, shot Shamsudding Mahmood, 26, in front of diners in June 1994.

He went on to serve as a sergeant in the Black Watch in the Iraq war before being convicted of the murder in 2008 and ordered to spend at least 25 years behind bars after being convicted of the killing in 2008.

The crime was branded “vicious, evil and unprovoked” by the judge who heard the trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Ross, who was just 15 at the time of the murder, had his appeal against the conviction heard at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh earlier this year.

His legal team argued that police interviews, carried out without a lawyer present when Ross was 15 and 16, were “unfair”. It was claimed that the Crown’s actions, in relying upon the contents of the interviews, were incompatible with his human rights.

The convicted killer’s legal team further argued that the trial judge “erred” by refusing to allow the defence to lead evidence from a psychologist. But Scotland’s top judge, the Lord Justice General Lord Hamilton, who heard the case with Lords Carloway and Bonomy, upheld the conviction today.

Lord Hamilton, who is also issuing a written judgment in the case, told Ross: “For the reasons that are expressed in it, the appeal is refused.”